Tommy Sheehan first came to Columbia in the fall of 1990 as a graduate assistant on the football staff, reuniting him with Columbia’s head coach at the time, Ray Tellier. Tellier had originally recruited the Buffalo, N.Y., native when he was head coach at the University of Rochester. Sheehan spent three years on the Columbia staff, and earned a master’s in applied physiology.

He then joined the New York State Police as a physical training instructor before attending the State Police academy and becoming a New York State trooper. He left the police force two years later and returned to Columbia as assistant strength and conditioning coach. He was named Director of Strength and Conditioning in 2001. In this capacity, Sheehan supervises a two-person staff in all aspects of strength and conditioning for Columbia’s 31 intercollegiate teams.

Sheehan is one of the finest offensive players in the University of Rochester’s gridiron history. An All-American as a junior and senior, he twice earned All-ECAC and all-conference honors. He ranks among the Yellowjackets’ all-time leaders in every receiving category, and topped the list at the completion of his playing career in receiving yardage for a game (189), season (835), and career (1,982). In 2005, he was inducted into Rochester’s Athletics Hall of Fame.

Well-known throughout the strength and conditioning profession, he was asked to produce an instructional DVD for the Cleveland Indians, on movement training in an off-season conditioning program. It was shot at the Indians’ Jacobs Field and distributed to the players in the Cleveland system.

Sheehan and his wife, Dr. Tricia Lipani, live on Morningside Heights with their daughter Guiliana, born in April 2008. Dr. Lipani, a former track and field athlete at Columbia, is a psychologist in the hematology department at Columbia University Medical Center. She holds a master’s and Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Vanderbilt.